Whenever I have to turn a screw, I turn to this easy-to-find, yellow box of bits.

Flat? Phillips? Torx? Square? Any time I run into a standard-style screw head that needs turning I reach for my drill and add one of these bits. There is a pretty fair assortment, though some repetition, of sizes and shapes in this yellow box.

The metal the bits are made of? Good enough. What I really like? The "tough" plastic case! I dunno how tough canary yellow is, but it is easy to find in my tool bag, or left about the house.

I also have a black box of bits, I can never find them. Yellow it is!

DEWALT DW2166 45-Piece Screwdriving Set with Tough Case via Amazon

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Hand powered drilling tools and machines is a fascinating jaunt through the history of drills, from the dawn of man until the age of electricity. Oddly, it omits Push Drills, which are by far the best type of hand drill for small (less than 1/4") projects in wood and other soft material. Check it out:

If you're just here looking to build houses off the grid or in the zombie apocalypse or after a Trump tweet triggers global nuclear catastrophe, get a decent metal geared drill; the cheap ones are glorified egg whisks. Read the rest

When a bolt or screw is stripped, I drill it out with this extractor set.

When working on old motorcycles, or just my old VW bus, I encounter a lot of stuck screws and bolts. Frequently prior mechanics have left fastners completely rounded off. When these things happen, I grab my drill.

These extractor bits both burnish the stripped head, and then screw into it and extract it. They are not simple to use, and it takes a very steady hand -- something I don't always have -- but slow and patient work generally produces good results.

Speed Out Extractor HSS Broken Bolt and Damaged Screw Extractor via Amazon Read the rest